THE RELATIONS OF PATHOLOGY 121 



As indicated in the foregoing we are now at the beginning of an 

 era of the application of newer physical and chemical methods to 

 many problems in medicine, problems that at one time were regarded 

 as approachable only by so-called biological methods, and the 

 number of problems that lend themselves promisingly to this form 

 of treatment seems to be constantly increasing. I have referred 

 already to their use in the study of chemical problems in immunity. 

 The many fundamental problems connected with the constancy 

 of osmotic pressure in the fluids of the body; the great influence of 

 osmotic disturbances in the production of edema; the interesting 

 relations of ions to proteins; the physico-chemical properties of 

 ions of various salts in relation to pharmacological action these 

 are some of the new questions that are being actively studied with 

 results in many cases of far-reaching importance. 



In many of its phases this departure is the outcome of the appli- 

 cation by Loeb and others of general chemistry to biological study 

 the results of which we have followed with increasing wonder as they 

 have shown us the extent to which certain life phenomena can be 

 controlled unequivocally by chemical and physical means. Many 

 of the manifestations of life are physical in character, but biologists 

 are agreed that the source of energy in life phenomena is chemical, 

 and that general chemistry therefore must form the foundation of 

 biology. From this it follows directly that the deeper, fundamental 

 explanation of the mechanisms of pathological processes also re- 

 quires chemical and physical methods. Henceforth chemistry will 

 play an increasingly important role in the efforts to reduce the phe- 

 nomena of pathological biology to simpler laws. We thus find again 

 that sharp lines of demarkation cannot be drawn between normal 

 and pathological biology; for progress in one naturally exercises 

 determining influence on progress in the other, and in both develop- 

 ment is in the direction of synthesis with physics and chemistry. 



Medicine has been called the mother of sciences, and not without 

 reason. She gave to physics Galileo, Mayer, Helmholtz; to geology 

 Steno; to botany Linnaeus; to chemistry Black, Berzelius, Liebig; 

 to biology Aristoteler, Lamarck, and Huxley; but as pointed out 

 by Sir Michael Foster, her children are ever coming back to help 

 her. In medicine as a science and as an art many sciences converge 

 physical, chemical, and biological methods join hands for the 

 advancement of knowledge and the relief of suffering. 



